A vehicle is equipped with a driver assistance system or an automatic control that assists a driver in controlling the motor vehicle. Specifically, assistance in a longitudinal and a lateral control of the motor vehicle is rendered in this context, either individually or jointly. For the control, an environment of the motor vehicle is scanned, e.g., optically and/or by radar, and objects and the characteristic of their relative movements in the surrounding area of the motor vehicle, i.e., their trajectories, are ascertained from the scanned information. This process is also known as tracking. In order to allow for a reliable ascertainment of the trajectories, the information is usually determined at fixed time intervals and plausibilized with the aid of a movement model. The movement model of the motor vehicle is based on assumptions, e.g., a maximum acceleration or a maximum yaw rate that are expected during a normal operation of the motor vehicle.
If the motor vehicle is involved in an accident, especially a collision, then the driver assistance system is usually switched off immediately. The accelerations that occur during a collision frequently exceed the accelerations provided for in the movement model many times over so that the plausibilization of the trajectories during the accident is not successful. To allow a reliable resumption of tracking after the accident, scanning of the environment of the motor vehicle must usually be carried out in a plurality of scanning steps. Generally, a plausibilization normally requires data that were collected over a period of multiple seconds or even multiple minutes. The determination of the trajectories may therefore be carried out only poorly or not at all after the accident has ended.
The present invention may provide improved technique for detecting the environment of a motor vehicle in the event of a first collision. Preferred example embodiments are described herein.